In this period of Humanity Day, Glénat offers us a dive into the childhood of the struggle with Communists!.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have communist parents
By this paraphrase of the title of a film, we fully understand the theme of this book. It is the autobiographical account of the author's childhood with communist militant parents. Indeed, the script and the drawing are the work of one man, Pascal Thivillon (Hors-Monde). Each chapter is centered around the memory of an action. The author highlights the innocent look of the child he was alive the daily life of the son of militants (the smoky and debated section meeting, the demonstrations …). Little Thivillon finds all this normal even the strangest, the collage of posters at night. He has a fair and tender look that also sometimes shows the ambiguous relationship of the PCF with the USSR. The author's text reconstructs his past in an almost sociological way : the shock of 1968 for his parents, his social origin, his political training through his father, the strong feeling of community in the party… Beyond political life, Communists! is also a family story. Thivillon recounts his life in a low-rent housing in Villeurbanne with his older brother, a teacher mother and a locksmith father.
Thivillon's graphic style corresponds perfectly to this subject both realistic and childish with a curved drawing. In addition, he chose to represent everything in gray with hints of red for Marx's flags or books. In a classic ensemble, flashes of invention illuminate the story: the car ride where billboards are replaced by slogans of 68 to show that the vision of the world by his parents opened by this revolt.
It was better before
Thivillon conveys a nostalgia for this bygone period: the 2CV, the returnable bottles to bring back to the supermarket, the alcohol duplicator to make photocopies… You can almost smell the smell of this period. We are sometimes in ostalgia, nostalgia for the communist as in Goodbye Lenin, for this communitarian ideal that has disappeared today. We find the sale of lily of the valley and the massive demonstrationof May 1 . This tender gaze sometimes lacks hindsight by forgetting the dark aspects of communism.
Glénat offers us a quality edition by including at the end a page of family photos and souvenirs, a badge and a one-franc coin.
Communists! is a beautiful tribute to his parents. The reader lives in the middle of these two passionate utopians while noting the failure of this dream.
